Originally Posted by
chucknorris
It’s not as easy as dismissing the annual bid. The annual bid came about because of the quarterly bid’s incompatibility with vacation bidding. If you lose vacation moving to the quarterly system you’re bidding after upgrade whatever scraps are left…. Which is October or September. If you let people keep vacation, then you leave the fleet without coverage and you somewhat subvert seniority.
Its not as easy as just switching to a new system. The supplemental bids are for ad hoc adds and thus the vacation impact isn’t as great.
This is true, but people don't seem to know or care about the vacation issue. Maybe some would rather lose their vacation when changing bases and upgrading in exchange for bidding more often?
Maybe there just needs to be a better system for base trading? Seems like guys more than anything want more base trading opportunities? But you're going to lose your vacation if you do that.
I much preferred quarterly bids, but we also lost our vacation periods with that system.
I do think outside of the annual bid, there should be monthly bids for the vacancies that would otherwise go to new hires, but with the understanding that you give up your vacation period to take advantage of it. Then it's your choice, pick your poison.
Especially as the fleet/airline become more complex and larger, I would think at least one supplemental bid per year is a reasonable expectation, and has happened the last couple of years.